Facebook’s hardware group is reportedly working on nex-gen products

With nearly 2 billion users, Facebook is said to take a huge step towards becoming a multi-product hardware company. Facebook’s secretive group ‘Building 8’ is said to be foraying into unannounced consumer hardware products that might involve next generation cameras, augmented reality (AR) devices, drones, and even a brain scanning technology.

Although Building 8 did not unveil any of its products, the hardware group is expected to play a key role in Facebook’s developer conference in coming April. According to the report, Building 8 will include a big retail push complete with warehouse operations, different retail experiences, and a ‘global contact center footprint. It looks like, Facebook is not considering this as a hobby.

The job listings by Business Insider and an analysis of Building 8’s recent hires proves a fact that Facebook is very ambitious in its new consumer hardware units. The reports have also said that the 22,000-square-foot lab at Menlo Park, California, headquarters is used to perform fast prototyping and modeling of these new hardware products.

The social networking giant is also working on solar-powered craft Aquila that beams the internet down to the estimated four billion people worldwide. Regarding this, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says,”Over the next year we’re going to keep testing Aquila – flying higher and longer and adding more planes and payloads. It’s all part of our mission to connect the world and help more of the four billion people who are not online access all the opportunities of the internet”.